The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for allowing a personal computer to receive data from a computer network such as the Internet via a broadcast channel, e.g., of a cable or satellite television network, while transmitting data upstream to the computer network via a telephone line. In particular, the present invention provides dynamic network configuration of a one-way adapter in a one-way communication system such as a cable television system or the like. A proxy agent is provided for communicating with a resource server of the computer network through a configured return path adapter, thereby providing bi-directional communication between the one-way adapter and the resource server.
The following acronyms are used:
ARP--Address Resolution Protocol; PA1 CPU--Central Processing Unit; PA1 DHCP--Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol; PA1 HTTP--Hyper Text Transport Protocol; PA1 IETF--Internet Engineering Task Force; PA1 IETF--Internet Engineering Task Force; PA1 IGMP--Internet Group Management Protocol; PA1 IP--Internet Protocol; PA1 IPCP--Internet Protocol Configuration Protocol; PA1 ISP--Internet Service Provider; PA1 LAN--Local Area Network; PA1 LMDS--Local Multi-point Distribution System; PA1 MMDS--Multi-channel Multi-point Distribution System; PA1 MSO--Multiple Systems Operator; PA1 PC--Personal Computer; PA1 PPP--Point-to-Point Protocol; PA1 PPRA--Packet Processing Relay Agent; PA1 RF--Radio Frequency; PA1 RFC--Request For Comments; PA1 TCP--Transmission Control Protocol; PA1 UDP--User Datagram Protocol; PA1 UHF--Ultra High Frequency; and PA1 WAN--Wide Area Network.
Existing cable television networks deliver digital television signals to users' homes via coaxial cable, or hybrid fiber and coaxial cable networks. Additionally, satellite distribution networks that transmit programs directly to a user's home have also gained increased popularity. The digital signals transmitted to the user provide high-fidelity video and audio. Other types of data can also be transmitted to the user, such as closed captioning data, stock data, weather reports and the like. This data may be modulated onto an entire television signal channel, or a portion of the television signal channel, such as the vertical blanking interval, and recovered at a decoder in the user's home.
Additionally, some cable networks provide an upstream communication path that allows a user to transmit signals to the headend, for example, to order pay-per-view programming, or to check on an account balance.
Furthermore, computer networks such as the Internet are growing rapidly in popularity, particularly among the general public who use the Internet for entertainment, educational, and informational purposes, and to communicate with other users. A user typically accesses the Internet via a PC and a telephone modem via a conventional duplex telephone line to download graphics, text and even audio and video data from various remote servers. Users may also communicate real-time with one another by transmitting data from a sender's PC to the receiver's PC. Thus, data is transmitted to and from the PC via the two-way telephone modem.
An important difference between telephone and cable or satellite television networks is bandwidth. Because telephone networks were built to carry only voice signals, the bandwidth is very limited, e.g., 3 KHz. In contrast, cable television and satellite networks are designed to deliver full-motion video and, as a result, have a much greater bandwidth, e.g., several hundred MHz or more.
Accordingly, the provision of Internet data services and the like on a cable or satellite network would be highly desirable due to the increased bandwidth available. Such an arrangement would greatly speed the response to the user's PC, while providing additional marketing opportunities for cable and satellite network operators.
However, the provision of an upstream path is not feasible for satellite or terrestrial broadcast networks, including UHF, MMDS and LMDS. Moreover, many cable television networks are not configured for upstream communications, or any such provisioning may be limited and not suitable for handling transmissions from a larger number of users. In particular, network operators may prefer to maintain the available upstream path for significant revenue-enhancing activities such as pay-per-view orders.
Furthermore, since the cable/satellite channel is a broadcast channel, and the telephone line is a point-to-point channel, communication and addressing protocols that are available on a PC do not work seamlessly in the cable/satellite broadcast environment.
Moreover, the communication and addressing protocols of a computer network are generally incompatible with cable and satellite television equipment.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system that allows a PC to receive data from a computer network such as the Internet via a downstream broadcast channel of a cable, satellite or terrestrial broadcast television network, while transmitting data to the computer network via an upstream telephone line. The system should provide compatibility with the routing/addressing conventions of the protocol stack used by the computer network.
For ease of network operations and management, operators would like the one-way adapters to be configured dynamically with their IP address network configuration information.
The system should provide dynamic network configuration of a one-way adapter, such as a cable or satellite modem, that receives data from a computer network such as the Internet via a downstream broadcast channel of a cable or satellite television network, respectively. Such configuration provides IP addresses and configuration information for the duration of the Internet session. This address can be assigned to other modems when the user is not surfing.
Given that the adapter is one-way receive-only, and that the assignment of network configuration information requires a two-way send and receive communication link, the system should provide a proxy agent that facilitates the dynamic configuration of a one-way adapter and associated network services using a configured return path.
The system should provide compatibility between the one-way adapter and the routing/addressing conventions of the protocol stack used by the computer network.
The present invention provides a system having the above and other advantages.